Psych: "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds" Review

Shawn and Gus pimp their ride.

While we had questions as to the quality of PSYCH's second season (due to the deteriorating quality of the first season's episodes), we are glad to say that after four episodes that the show is as strong as ever. With an interesting mystery plotline, hilarious characterization, fun side-characters and lots of humor throughout, "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds" was an enjoyable hour of television which reminded us why we enjoy this series so much in the first place.

In case you missed the episode, the story followed Shawn and Gus as they once again helped the slow detectives at the Santa Barbara Police Department solve their case however this time it all seemed just a little too easy. After almost instantaneously solving Lassiter's case involving his stolen car, Shawn receives uncharacteristic praise from his colleagues - leading him to question whether or not he truly solved the case correctly. As the episodes goes on we are presented with a mystery surrounding a custom car dealership and a couple guys named Wally and Johnny G. As always, the good guys catch the bad guys and Shawn and Gus come out ahead because of it.

Normally the confines of a program's premise can take away from the creativity and appeal of a show, however due to fun characters, interesting plotlines and excellent comedy PSYCH has continued to hold our attention. But, one thing that we need to mention after this week's episode is Shawn's increasingly absurd "psychic" visions. While we love the idea of a smart citizen using "psychic" powers to fool the police into letting him help with their cases, Shawn's performances are just becoming too over-the-top - leaving us to question just how stupid Lassiter, O'Hara, Vick and the rest of the police department are that they can't see through Shawn and Gus' bulls***. Once again this is not a problem with James Roday's performance, but a problem with the level at which he is allowed to perform. While we can't think of a better actor to play Shawn than Roday, these "psychic" premonitions are going to have to be a little more subtle or we are going to lose all respect for Santa Barbara's finest.

Shawn makes some minor alterations to Gus' car.

Another gripe which we would normally harp on, happens to be one of the positives for this week's episode. While we would normally chalk up uncharacteristic behavior from the program's characters to plot device or poor writing, this week we loved Lassiter and O'Hara's odd and simple behavior. After it was thought that Shawn and Gus had solved the crime, life went on as usual, except for Shawn who was convinced that he was wrong, and Lassiter and O'Hara who became humorously fixated on teaching a seminar for modern law enforcement and their new bulletproof vests. Once again, we could see how these characters' aloof personalities could bother PSYCH fans, but we here at IGN just loved watching as these two focused on something more than annoying Shawn and Gus. The highlight of this strange behavior was the video package which was put together with O'Hara and Lassiter looking professional with police weaponry.

The reason that "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds" worked so well was that it was just a lot of fun. While we can say that for the whole series, this episode just seemed to embody the whole premise of the show - Shawn is smarter than everybody else, Gus is annoyed by Shawn but follows him around to help solve the case, Shawn's dad is there to teach him a lesson and annoy him along the way, the Santa Barbara police department is full of lovable incompetent workers, and we watch all of this as a seemingly straight forward mystery is solved in a entertaining manner. If PSYCH was anymore complex than this episode, we believe that it would lose some of its charm that makes it a worthy watch for fans of any genre. If you haven't seen this series yet, check out "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds" to see what you have been missing out on.